Far from being silenced, the conservative voice is amplified and disproportionately powerful | Brad Chilcott

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The Catholic philosopher John Haldane told fellow panellists considering the role of Christian theology in public and political discourse that divisive issues should not be allowed to divide communities.

“One thing that’s extremely important in liberal societies to learn is the notion of ‘reasonable disagreement’,” he said. “It seems to me that all of these issues are ones in which there are reasonable arguments on either side.

“To say that is not to be a relativist, it is not to say they can’t be resolved. But it is to recognise that people who hold contrary views on these matters are neither wicked nor stupid.”

The Australian Christian Lobby leader, Lyle Shelton, was called on by an audience member to defend the Christian historian Eric Metaxas, who wrote a comprehensive biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffor, the German priest, people smuggler and anti-Nazi dissident who was executed by the Nazi regime in 1945.

Metaxas has been accused of comparing homosexuality to Nazism in a 2011 interview. He did not make the comparison – using neither of those terms in his comments – but was discussing Christian churches remaining faithful to orthodox doctrine rather than bending to government influence or popular opinion. He mentioned the German Lutheran church in the 1930s, which essentially became captive to the Third Reich, in contrast to Bonhoeffer who opposed the church’s acquiescence to Hitler.

Shelton told Q&A Metaxas “has not made those comments” and had been taken out of context.

The journalist Julie McCrossin, a member of the South Sydney Uniting church, said understanding needed to extend across religious lines: “The challenge of the 21st century is that we need to reach out to each other, not just different kinds of Christians as we have on this panel tonight, but different faith groups. And that mutually respectful reaching out and seeking to understand each other’s faiths is critical now.”

The panel considered the Christian doctrine of a “just war” and whether the massive outflows of refugees from the Middle East were the result of western military interventions. They debated whether Bible passages, such as Ephesians counselling wives to “submit” to husbands, could be misused to justify or excuse domestic violence.

Addressing Indigenous reconciliation, the Indigenous Anglican pastor Ray Minniecon said the doctrine of terra nullius was Australia’s “original sin” that the modern country needed to “come to grips with” before genuine progress could be made.